Does your Long Arm Encourage You to Take Risks?

I seem to have missed the part where the author indicates displaying a long gun may get you in trouble with the law.

None of the 4 cases mentioned got the parties in trouble with the law for displaying a weapon. Rittenhouse had the issue of minor in possession, but not display (which is apparently legal in Wisconsin and was the only gun Rittenhouse could carry legally), and that was all after the fact and thrown out. The McCloskey's problem wasn't display, but pointing their guns at people. The Aubery charge is murder, not display. Not sure if displaying is legal or not where that happened. Some vigilantes attempted to arrest Aubery and he wasn't having it. The Texas custody incident has no charges as of yet and it would certainly appear that display (of lethal force) is considered under Texas law to be Force and Force is legal in dealing with a trespasser.

Does a long gun lead (cause) to taking risks? This seems to be a huge stretch drawn from sensationalized cases. I think that at best, he has cherrypicked 4 high profile correlations where people just happened to be using long guns and one of those also involved the 'display' of a handgun, so that example is a bit of a wash, or it is illustrative of the fact that people will use firearms for displays of force. They will also use baseball bats, tire irons, knives, etc.

The author somewhat dances around the issue, but the problem isn't with the long gun, but with the tactics used. It could very well be argued that handguns, in particular concealed carry handguns can lead to people being involved in "playing cops"...taking risks they would not otherwise take.

For example, you have the Tyler square shooting where Mark Wilson ran down from his apartment overlooking the square and engaged a gunman with a rifle and was subsequently killed.

Joe Wilcox, upon hearing that the revolution was starting in Walmart attempted to engage with his handgun the one gunman he saw and was summarily dispatched by the gunman's wife.

John Wilson attempted to engage a mass shooter in Houston and was summarily gunned down after drawing his gun and without firing a shot.

Dan McKown was apparently emboldened by the fact that he carried a gun for the purpose (as stated by him) of protecting others and stood up from behind cover and shouted at the gunman (afraid the cops would see he had a gun and shoot him) and was quickly shot multiple times by the gunman and crippled for life.

Jack Wilson did well in killing a church shooter, but one of his underling security guards apparently emboldened by having a gun and some training from Jack Wilson took the risk of drawing on a drawn gun and was immediately killed.

Anthony “TJ” Antell Jr. drew his gun and attempted to intervene Ricci Braden who had just shot dead his (Braden's) wife. TJ was summarily killed by Braden as well.

My point here is this. If you want to argue that having a long gun somehow leads to or causes people to take risks that end up with unfortunate outcomes, then the same may be said for handguns. It is still a bad argument. The problem isn't with the tool, but the tactics.

And yeah, despite the author's claim to the contrary, the article really does sound like he is showing his own bias for handguns.

Stupid people do stupid things because they are stupid, not because of inanimate objects they have in their possession.

I agree with both Jeff and DNS 100%.

This statement from the blog article cannot be supported:
Consider the contemporary American society itself: we don’t like to even see law enforcement walking around with rifles, it is not the norm. Cops with handguns is the norm. in most of the country civilians with concealed handguns is the norm. Openly carried rifles are not the norm and it attracts attention immediately. Interestingly, in Europe, where the peasants are unarmed, they think nothing of police officers walking around with rifles. In the United States, however, we don’t accept it from actors of the state or from private citizens. We consider it a display of force.

That's just BS. Clearly "Salvatore" has not spent much time in places such as NYC. Few in this country worry so much when they see LE walking around with rifles. It has become the norm, like it or not. Yes, it can attract attention -- but mostly from the bad actors and the hoplophobes. And comparing the U.S. with Europe? Non-starter, sorry.

Do I want to see the a$$clowns wandering into Chipotle with ARs and AKs sporting cheap optics on slings? No. But am I going to accept it? The question is, is it legal? If so, yes.

The author of the blog delves too much into worry about the stupid people, the untrained (seriously, he obsesses too much about those who know nothing of the tactics he wants all armed people to know -- read one of his previous blogs about CCWers), the attention seekers and the rest of those who don't give any deep thought to their actions. If we are going to obsess about these people, we'll all need to go on anti-anxiety medication, because our society is so chock full of them. I choose to accept freedom and liberty, which comes with having to tolerate a lot of things I don't like.

I agree with Jeff.

I think the premise of the article is absurd.

I don't take life advice from poor or absent bylines.

I have been in numerous gun fights. I always had a a long gun. The long gun didn't cause the gun fights, being in war did. Trying to justify that a long gun makes you take more risk is one small step away from "if you own a gun, you must be a criminal."

No 2 situations are identical, and what-iffing a hypothetical future scenario against something that happened in the past in relation to what tools were in play seems like a waste of time to me. When weapons are introduced into a confrontation, expect to be in a position in the future where you (better yet, your lawyer) will have some explaining to do. As far as "taking risks", the 5th standing order of Rogers Rangers comes to mind: Don't never take a chance you don't have to.

The premise of the article is fantasy. Inanimate objects don't cause anything. However, a couple of things come to mind:

If you felt it appropriate to carry a long gun, (in public) what perception of threat caused you to carry it?
Or are you trying to be your version of cool, show the public what 2A really means, are you paranoid/delusional or what? If your cognitive function, and threat recognition are flawed, I feel you can only get into trouble with it. Failure to register the public's reaction is a perception flaw.

Once you strap on a long gun, it pretty much is the center of your awareness. Attempting to get anything else accomplished, would by definition, a bit problematic.
At some point, in practical daily function, without a threat, I'd be inclined to leave the long gun home. Strapping on a rifle to go shopping for cabbage and cucumbers at the farmer's market at least in current American society, is ridiculous. I would think that at some point, it's not about shopping, it's about wearing the rifle.

Then there is always the axiom, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Leftists are usually pretty obvious when it comes to articles. Why we continue to debate their crap scenarios is part of our problem.

Whole article is garbage anti 2A.

You would do yourself and the 2A community a blessing by keeping these types of writing to yourself, or better yet not giving them the click in the first place.

I didn't see anything anti-2a, but I could see some anti-common sense. The claim that the rifles, being only what they are, were somehow responsible for these unfortunate situations is ridiculous. Like was mentioned above, expecting a different outcome in any of the scenarios if a mere handgun was present instead is debatable at best. There's absolutely no way to prove anything would change.

So the question is, does a long arm lead a person toward poor decision making? Does having a gun of any type have that affect on a person? Is their psyche somehow changed just by having it on hand? For some people, I wouldn't find it surprising.
Just not on a big enough scale to make a blanket statement like the author.

Good Ol' Boy said:

Whole article is garbage anti 2A.

Click to expand...

No it isn't. Anti critical thinking perhaps, but not anti 2A.